Isolated groups (religious, indigenous, etc.,) should be de-isolated.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Isolated groups (religious, indigenous, etc.,) should be de-isolated.

Sucrose: Dec 9, 2009

We all know about the great educational opportunities given to penniless children forcibly ripped from marginalized indigenous communities.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2015 06:07

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 16, 2024 21:53

Sucrose: Dec 9, 2009

XMNN posted:

People keep saying noble savage a lot then arguing that civilising the jungle savages is the white man's burden.

I have no doubt that life for these people is nasty, brutish and short and dying of an intestinal parasite is something that ideally wouldn't happen in 2015, but everywhere you look life is nasty, brutish and short and people are being killed by treatable diseases including specifically in the countries where these people live and for similar groups that have had some interaction with global civilisation.

As long as we're not forcing them to remain in the rainforests, I just don't see how it can be ethical to force them to interact with us.

People have a misconception that Amazonian uncontacted tribes are unknown people living in some sort of primeval state who have never encountered modern civilization. In fact most of these tribes are descendants of agriculturalists, who fled deep into the rainforest during the early 20th century during the Rubber Boom to escape genocidal massacres of indigenous people by rubber plantation owners and loggers. Anthropologists typically know exactly who these groups are, what languages they speak, and who their closest contacted relatives are. These groups refuse contact by choice, not because they are unaware of the outside world.

Also, it's not unusual for these isolated groups to re-establish contact themselves after several generations have passed and violence against them has mostly stopped. This has happened in the Andaman Islands, though the indigenous groups there are still in a bad situation.

Sucrose fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Oct 11, 2015

# ¿ Oct 11, 2015 01:56

Sucrose: Dec 9, 2009

DeusExMachinima posted:

Yeah.

Forcing someone to have contact with you for their own good isn't okay, but I have no legal problem with private individuals such as missionaries hiking around public reserves and exercising their free speech with whomever will listen. It's pretty dumb but it's not the same as "okay we're going to take your children to special schools whether you like it not d/w/i" like they did in Australia. Anyone conducting business like logging or oil prospecting (assuming it's legal) is also justified in shooting the poo poo out of any attacking party that puts lives in danger.

Uncontacted indigenous groups typically live on reservations set aside for them, where it's illegal to trespass. But of course loggers and others often do so anyways.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2015 02:04

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Isolated groups (religious, indigenous, etc.,) should be de-isolated.